


The Artist As A Young Man

by lembas7



Series: ECverse [10]
Category: Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lembas7/pseuds/lembas7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1988 through Fall 1994.

“Jes- _see_!”

_Now what?_ Careful not to slop the milk, Jesse set the pail down, only remembering to ease the screen closed after it rattled into the frame with a _bang!_

_Now I’m gonna catch it –_

Nothing.

Frowning, Jesse eased his lanky limbs through the kitchen door. “Yes’m?”

Momma was holding a letter.

Two big sets of brown eyes belonging to May Belle and Joyce Ann were crowded at her shoulder, peering toward the envelope. Unease curled in his stomach, hissing like a rattler about to strike.

“Jesse Oliver Aarons.” Momma held up the paper, frazzled gray strands floating about her face in the thin breeze from the screened door. “What is this?”

“I don’t know, Momma,” was the truthful response.

Whipcord anger lashed out at him. “Don’t you sass me, Jesse!”

“No, Momma, really – lemme see?”

By this time his dad, Jesse Oliver Aarons Sr., had left the worn armchair in front of the television to come into the kitchen. “What’s all this fussin’?”

“Jesse got a letter -” May Belle, excited, smiling. Straight brown hair, just like his own, clung to her neck in sweaty strands. Joyce Ann, the baby, was twelve and staring petulantly. She looked just like Ellie.

Paper changed hands without him even getting a chance to see the print. Jesse could only wait as his dad’s eyes scanned the page. Once. Twice. Finally, _finally_ , the letter was stretched his way.

“You gonna explain this?”

_Academy of Magical Art_ scrolled across the top, letters perfectly curved and flowing. _Mr. Aarons, we are pleased to inform you -_

Stunned, Jesse looked up to find his parents and two younger sisters staring at him. _Good thing Ellie and Brenda don’t live here anymore._ “But – but I didn’t -”

“Didn’t?” Momma, suspicious and not bothering to hide it.

“I didn’t apply!” Jesse burst out. Something tickled the back of his mind. _Oh!_ “Miss Edmunds.” The minute he said it he knew it was right. “She must’a done it.” 

“That . . . hippie?” Momma said with distaste. “What right she got to be -”

“She ain’t a hippie, Momma,” Joyce Ann stuck in.

_Girl never knows to keep her trap shut._ Jesse tucked the thought deep as an argument boiled over into the kitchen, Momma and Joyce Ann and May Belle yattering on in loud, chicken-squawk voices. _I got in._

“Jesse?”

Surprised brown eyes pulled from the script of the letter to find everyone was looking at him.

“I got in,” he repeated, still amazed. Read further, past that first thrilling sentence. And gaped. “They – they gave me full scholarship.”

Dead silence.

“They what?” his dad demanded.

Jesse read. “ _Upon submission of your portfolio, you have been found eligible for our merit-based scholarship program covering full tuition._ ” He blinked at his dad. “They’ll pay for everything.”

“Portfolio?” was the suspicious response from Momma. Apron tied over her worn dress, thick wooden spoon in hand, the glower she was wearing scared him silly. _Oh, no._

“Jesse paints, Momma.”

“May Belle!” he hissed, hand darting out. _Your life ain’t worth nothin’, girl._

Bare toes danced on worn linoleum as she scooted out of reach. “You’re good, Jesse,” she insisted.

“I thought you gave that damn-fool nonsense up,” his dad said gruffly.

“No,” was what he finally said.

“So you been foolin’ around for years, wastin’ time on frippery?” Momma’s voice rose high. His dad was the one more likely to get angry about the drawing and painting, turning his only son into a –

Well. Jesse’d known what his dad had thought of his art when he was six, and even after Leslie . . . nothing had really changed.

But once Momma was angry, there was no saving him. He’d been there for what had happened when Brenda came home knocked up by Willard Hughes. _Never want to live through nothin’ like that again._ They were married now, and that was all down to Momma.

_Wait – where’s May Belle gone off to?_ Dread kicked him, hard as Miss Bessie II. _She wouldn’t dare._ “May Belle!”

“Lookit!”

_Oh, Lord._

One thick canvas, stretched and stapled over a clean wooden frame, preceded her into the room; another followed. “You’re dead, girl,” he whispered. _Least she only brought two._ But two of _Terabithia -!_

Sassy and happy, his younger sister just shrugged, settling the oil paintings down gently on their battered kitchen table. A pink tongue poked between her lips at him. “You was gonna kill me anyways.”

His eyes narrowed. May Belle was getting cunning, at the ripe old age of fourteen.

“Ohhh, Momma, look,” Joyce Ann breathed, straw-like strands of hair draping in her eyes as she leant over the pictures. Jesse watched carefully, making sure she didn’t touch them. “The butterflies are flyin’!”

And they were.

Delicate white drabs of paint, no more than a suggestion of plume moths, scattered themselves across dappled greens that sprang into a forest across the length of smooth canvas. Stretching high, they resolved into the branches of elm and evergreen, oak and ash, swaying in a soundless breeze. Elusive sunlight slanted into the painting from an unseen source, dripping through the leaves to bathe the shading of light and shadow that suggested the figure of a child, standing alone in a clearing. Three words graced the bottom right corner, followed by a name.

_The Sacred Grove. J. O. Aarons._

“Oh,” Momma said softly.

The second painting had captured his dad’s attention. “Isn’t this that bridge you put over the gully?” _After your friend died,_ he didn’t say.

Jesse nodded.

The boards were faded now, twining new and old where wood silvered with age had been reinforced by the gentle sands and tans of younger beams. In the painting, the gully mimicked reality, steep and brown and as many feet deep as it was wide. The bridge spanned the six foot gap, one mild trickle of water at the bottom a clear division between two different worlds.

The left-hand bank was bare of trees; instead, fields stretched into the distance, corralled by skinny fences and dotted with slow-moving cows. Out of the corner of the eye, a small grey farmhouse perched on a hilltop, with a battered red pickup truck forever kicking up a plume of dust on the winding road leading away from it.

The right hand bank was _alive._ Flowered vines twirled halfway across the bridge on that side, cut off as if by a razor exactly in the middle. Trees arched over the precipitous embankment; the occasional massive boulder protruded, a proud battlement, from the line of verdant growth. The very air seemed to glow, sparkling with something _more_ that couldn’t be found on the other side of the bridge. And every so often, something small would flit between rustling leaves, catching the eye with the color of children’s laughter.

The depiction for this piece hid in the lower-left corner, almost sliding into the gully.  

_Bridge to Terabithia. J.O.Aarons._

“Jesse,” Momma’s eyes were bright, the anger evaporated. “This is . . . this is beautiful. You got a gift.”

Joyce Ann couldn’t stop staring between him and the pictures.

His dad seemed to have lost his fury as well. “I seen people pay money for pictures not half as good,” he said quietly. His eyes shifted to the paper Jesse was still holding.

“Momma, Daddy,” May Belle jumped in, sidling up to Jesse and hugging close. “Lookit. Jesse got a gift, like you said, Momma, and this school’s gonna pay for ever’thing ‘ceptin’ his clothes. Nothin’ like this ain’t never happenin’ again. You gotta let him go, you just gotta!”

“May Belle,” Jesse started. _They won’t never let me go. I gotta stay here, help Momma’n Daddy._ His dad was getting older, not as able to do the farm work after driving everyday to Washington for his job.

But his dad cut him off. “You got the talent, and you got the magic. They gonna pay for everything?”

His heart was sticking in his throat, pounding wildly with hope. Jesse swallowed it down, and read some more. “Yessir.”

“You wanna go?”

A tremor ran through his hands, the way it only did when he got done running all out, sprinting, throwing himself across the fields. He knew his dad wouldn’t change his mind about his art just from this, but – _Lord, yes. I do._ “Yessir.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, Lord.”

The building was _massive_ , made up of sturdy lines that begged to be caught by paper and graphite. Columns pounded proudly into the marble steps, rising to deep-carved words that must be Latin. _Admissions Office,_ proclaimed the glass doors hiding beneath.

Stiff new shoes _squeak_ ed against rain-washed marble. Jesse let his battered suitcase hit the ground to wrestle with the door.

“Here. Let me get that.”

An arm covered in dark wool eased around him, a strange hand gripping the handle tight and bracing the door.

“Thanks.” Jesse wedged himself, backpack, suitcase, and battered, secondhand portfolio through the opening. There was one tight moment where he feared he would pop free and lose his grip on everything, but he managed to make it into the building without dropping anything. _An’ the zipper’s holding. Thank God._ With as much as he’d squeezed in to the ancient suitcase, that was almost a miracle.

He turned to see a short, round man in an expensive suit smiling at him. “You’ve got everything?”

“Ah, yessir,” Jesse felt gangly and a little awkward. “Thank you.” _Oh!_ Momma’d have his head if she knew he’d forgotten his manners. Jesse held out a hand. “My name’s Jesse Aarons. I – I’m a new student.”

A sharp, surprised glance melted into a warm smile. “Well, Jesse, it’s nice to meet you.” Soft skin met his own calluses. “I’m Joe Abbiati, I work for the Academy. Welcome.”

“S’nice to be here, sir.” Jesse took a good look around. Plush crimson carpet underfoot; walls of cream-colored marble. The doors had an old feel to them, names written in gold on frosted glass marching one by one down hallways leading off from the entrance.

“ – a little early for new students to be arriving,” Mr. Abbiati was saying.

“Oh, um, I expected it’d take me longer, when I left,” Jesse explained. He’d really been very lucky.

“Train on time, for once?” The bald man’s smile was pleasant.

“Ah, I didn’t take the train.” Jesse dug both hands in his pockets, face heating up a little. “’M from Delaware. Caught a ride with a trucker was headin’ out this way.”

“You hitchhiked?” Mr. Abbiati had gone very still.

He tried to brush it off. Train fare cross-country was _expensive_ , planes even worse. And they only had the one car. “Was lucky,” Jesse offered. “Found a guy was going non-stop to San Diego. Wasn’t much to catch a ride down thisaway.”

“I see.” The smile was back, and to Jesse’s surprise it was genuine. “Well, we’re very glad to have you here. Let’s see if we can’t get you registered and set up in a dorm, what do you say?”

The suitcase was heavy; Jesse followed Mr. Abbiati down a thankfully short corridor, into a room marked _Registrar_. The blonde woman behind the desk smiled to see Mr. Abbiati, chirruping a cheerful, “Good morning, sir!”

“Katie,” the older man leant against her desk with a grin. “This is Jesse Aarons, an incoming freshman. I’d like to see that he gets tested, registered, and into his dorm room, please.”

_What? Tested?_ Jesse’s shoulders tensed.

Puzzlement sprang to life in blue eyes, but Katie smiled and said, “Of course, Mr. Abbiati. Mr. Aarons, would you fill this out please?”

“It’s just Jesse,” he mumbled, reaching for the pen and paper. Luckily, it was only a short form asking for his home mailing address.

“Thank you, Jesse.” Gentle pink fingernails tapped at her computer; after a moment, Katie smiled. “Our magical tester, Louisa Lefévre, is in Room 257, just down the hall. While you go and see her, I’ll pull your room assignment and key.”

“Thank you,” Jesse shifted his shoulders, readjusting the hefty pack against his complaining spine.

“Why don’t you put that down?” Mr. Abbiati waved at his two small bags. “You can leave your things here, and Katie will watch them for you.”

“Are you sure?” He could feel his forehead crease.

“Don’t worry,” she assured him.

“I’ll show you where to go,” Mr. Abbiati offered. Jesse followed subtle pinstripes down the hall to the main entryway, and down a hallway almost hidden by a huge potted plant that looked like it would rather be on a tropical island somewhere. _Wow._

_Louisa Lefévre_ scrolled across the door, but the colors were constantly shading between all the hues of the rainbow and some that definitely weren’t. _Hmmm._ He had only a second to study the play of color before the door swung open, without either of them laying a finger on it.

_Huh._

He’d seen magic before, of course. Everyone knew about witches and wizards, though it wasn’t something you talked about. Just was. _Doesn’t make ‘em any different than anyone else._ At least, that was what Jesse figured. _Never thought I’d be one, though._

“Joe!” The woman who burst out from behind the desk was not at all what Jesse was expecting. Wild orange curls bounced out from her head in all directions, barely tamed by a thin purple headband. Cheerful yellow robes were splotched with sequins and paint spots in equal measure. A paint roller drenched in white was held expertly in one hand.

“Louisa! How are you?”

To his surprise, the taller woman threw both arms around Mr. Abbiati and squeezed, careful to keep the paint away from his suit. “Never better. And who’s this?”

“Jesse Aarons, ma’am.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Jesse.” Her hand was as callused as his own, which for some reason drained a good deal of the tension from his body. “You can call me Louisa. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

_Why?_ Confused, Jesse opened his mouth to reply, and then just said, “Oh.”

“And let me guess.” Bottle-green eyes swept back to Mr. Abbiati. “Joe here’s scared you outta your wits by bringing you to be tested.”

Jesse laughed before he could help it. “Somethin’ like that, ma’am.” _I like her._ Exuberant and outgoing, Louisa still managed to be nice rather than brash.

_But . . . tested?_

Louisa seemed to know what he was thinking. “It’s not much of a test at all.” The roller pointed to a table along the wall, which stretched beneath rows of high, open glass windows. “I just want you to walk along there, and pick a tool. It’ll be yours to keep. Take your time, choose something that fits.”

_Something that fits?_ “’Kay.”

Voices, one deep and the other light, exchanged themselves for any other sound in the room as he walked toward the table, getting a good look at what was on it.

_Paintbrushes?_

A few rollers, trowels, and thick pencils and sticks of charcoal were scattered in; Jesse even saw several graceful metal rods used for blowing glass. But mostly, he saw the paintbrushes. New and shiny, with black and tan handles, bright metal clasping stiff, clean brown bristles to wood or plastic.

Gently, he reached out and touched one that looked like it might be large enough for his hand. _Oh!_

Pulling his hand back, Jesse stared a moment.

Then carefully laid skin against wood, making sure he hadn’t imagined the tingle that had run through him at the contact. He hadn’t.

_Can’t quite . . ._

They were wands, he realized suddenly. Artists’ wands – because he’d heard tell that all a wizard needed was a focus. It could be mental, but most needed physical. In Europe they were sticks of wood, wands proper, but America was different that way – wands were tools. Useful for what the witch or wizard really did. _‘Cause magic’s not the answer to everything._

But this one wasn’t right.

Knowing what he needed to do now, Jesse took two steps back to the beginning of the table, hands reaching out to touch each tool in turn. Sound faded to nothing as he brushed fingers across all he could reach. He even laid a palm against a sculptor’s hammer and chisel set, picking up a deep vibration that echoed into his bones. But nothing seemed to fit.

Frustration gnawed on his insides. _See,_ he could just hear them say – a voice that sounded like his Momma and older sisters with the flavor of his father’s disapproval. It was every kid who’d ever made fun of him for drawing. _You don’t belong here._

Until he came to the end of the table.

The older tools were here, not used but less shiny than the ones that had the brand-new _1988_ engraved in the handle. Jesse felt more comfortable here, without the weight of expectation demanded by the brightest tools. These were like him. Simple.

Then his hand hit bare wood, all butter-smooth grain uncovered by paint or varnish. A band of bright copper bound white bristles to cherry wood; for all he could see the dullness of age on it, the paintbrush was more beautiful than anything. A spark lit, deep in his heart.

_Oh, Lord._

It felt like . . . _Terabithia._

“Jesse?”

Brown eyes opened, and Jesse found himself squinting against a bright golden glow. _Sunlight?_ But it was coming from where his fingers had settled on the brush. “This ‘un,” he said slowly, looking up to see Louisa smiling. Mr. Abbiati was at her shoulder, fascination on his face. “Please?”

“Of course, Jesse,” Louisa bustled over to her table, snatching up a pencil to write something down. “Truth be told, I was wondering when that brush would decide to get itself out of my office and into a studio.”

Warm wood slipped between his fingers, completely at home there. The glow settled, then faded into his skin.

_Leslie. Wish you could see this._

* * *

 

“So, I want you to tell me. Why are you here?” Heels tapped easily on worn boards.

_S’like no classroom I’ve ever seen._

Instead of chairs and desks, the students had stools and easels. Professor Sherburne weaved easily between them, her suit as crisp and professional as Mr. Abbiati’s had been two days ago.

Jesse was still trying to figure out the new angle for drawing.

Someone raised a hand – a girl in the first row, with straight blonde hair scraped back into a neat bun, and wire-rimmed glasses.

“But not,” Professor Sherburne turned, one finger raised, “with words. You have paper, you have pencils. By the end of today’s class I want you to tell me. Why are you here?”

_Why’m I here?_ Jesse didn’t know if he could think of a stupider question. On his left, his roommate Frank had already picked up three different colors and had an extra pencil between his teeth.

_A key scraped in the lock; Jesse looked up from putting the last of his socks away._

_The boy who pushed in the battered door had three huge suitcases, and a clunky box, with a parent holding each side. “Hi,” he stuck his hand out, muscles bunching. “I’m Frank. I sculpt.”_

_“Jesse Aarons.” Saying ‘I paint’ sounded too weird. “D’you need help with that?”_

_“No, thanks,” huffed the woman who had to be Frank’s mother. “We’re almost -”_

Bump.

_“Eh, Frank’ll get it all sorted out,” his father assured Jesse, who was looking askance at the suitcases. The guy sure had a lot of stuff. “It’s nice to meet you, Jesse. Your folks around?”_

_“Ah, no.”_

_“Well. You must be excited to be here,” Frank’s mother said, primping her hair and sighing from the heat._

An hour of that, and then two more that evening getting to know the other guys on the hall during RA-organized activities. Jess didn’t see how trying to tell whether someone was lying about something helped you get to know them, except for now he knew that Frank lived in Barcelona for a year, and Tim down the hall loved ferrets but hated mustard.

His hand had taken a pencil, but Jesse had never felt so uninspired. Looking around, he could see a beautiful mansion growing out of quick pencil strokes – faces of people the other students loved, places and animals and things. _A stereo?_

Jesse shook his head, bangs brushing his eyes. _Stupid._

_‘Why are you here?’_

An old, familiar friend took up tiny residence in the center of the page. The little hippo was falling end-over-end, always, and the lines were crude and rough, the way they’d been when he hadn’t known how to properly hold a pencil. _Still don’t really know._

Another memory drew itself, and then another, flicking behind his eyes and slipping out the tip of the pencil in varying shades of grey.

_For classes? Intro to Drawing, Foundation Seminar, Time-Based Studio, Practical Painting, Sculpture: Expansive Objects?_

_For magic? Potions and Paints, History, Transfiguration?_

“Time.”

Jesse blinked. Looked at the clock – and realized he’d lost an hour and a half. _How did –_

Then he looked at his paper.

The hippo, tumbling from a cliff edge, still held center seat. But blossoming out from that point were snippets he’d drawn across his life since then – an ostrich with a banana stuck in its throat, a few other cartoony characters that were old friends from childhood. Bits of landscapes dropped like islands on the white expanse, all spiraling out to cover the page with bits and pieces of his life.

And trailing down one side like a border was an old, tattered length of rope with knots to grip and a foot-loop to brace anyone who decided to swing.  

_That’s why._

It might have taken a whole class-period to find it, but Jesse knew the answer. Carefully, he pulled the paper from the pad, scribbling his name in the corner. Set the pencil down, and added his answer to the pile spilling over Professor Sherburne’s desk.

 

* * *

 

“You do that assignment for Potions, Jess?”

_Damn lines. Why is this so hard?_ “Yeah,” he twisted his head, trying to get a better handle on the Sculpture assignment that was currently plopped on a desk he’d swept clear. _I’ll pick it up later._

Frank was rifling through his desk. “Where the hells did I put that Merlin-cursed -”

“You can borrow my book. If’n you help me figure out this damn Sculpture thing,” Jesse bargained.

“Done.” Frank eased over, and took a good look at what he was doing. “Ha!”       

“What?” Jess growled, snatching his drawing from Frank’s hand. “It helps me think.”

“Look,” Frank yanked the hand-sized statue of twisted wire closer on the desktop. “I will _never_ get how you can take 3-D and flatten it into 2-D and make it look real. And I _really_ don’t get how you can just reverse it. But this isn’t dealing with 2-D at all, so forget it. It’s a crutch. Stop.”

He frowned at his blunt friend. _I thought we were supposed to ‘recreate’ it. Why can’t I just draw?_ “But -”

The edge of a chisel waved almost in his face. Jesse jerked back. “Lord, Frank! Watch where you’re pointin’ that!”

Genuine chagrin swept over dark eyes. “Sorry.”

They tended to forget their tools also were their wands. _Comes of having only two real magic classes._

“Anyway,” Frank started turning the tangle of wires this way and that with one solid hand. “You’re supposed to do what you’re not comfortable doing, so that you can work on getting better. Now. What does ‘recreate’ mean?”

“Remake,” Jesse answered. Frank had a way of explaining things that always seemed to start somewhere completely unrelated that Jesse understood, and pull back into the project with a brand new perspective. He’d told Jesse he was going to be a teacher before he got his acceptance letter.

_Wait a minute. Remake. Make again. Make new._

“So, if you look at the -”

“Hold on,” Jess interrupted, reaching for his assignment pad. “What did Shanklin say? Exactly?”

Frank thought for a moment, then recited, “‘Take this sculpture. I want to see you recreate it, however you choose, in one week.’ And given that it’s Shanklin and it’s sculpture class -”

“He means in 3-D.”

That was the good thing about Frank; he might like football way to much for Jesse’s taste, but he did know when to shut up and when to talk.

“Thanks, Frank,” Jesse focused in on the sculpture. It really _was_ just a bunch of wires twisted together. _Not even glued or welded._ “Y’helped a lot.”

“If you say so. Can I still borrow your textbook?”

“Let me borrow your camera, and you got a deal.”

Frank dug out the Polaroid camera from an overflowing drawer and handed it over. “Why d’you want this old thing?”

“Don’t you pay no nevermind,” Jess said absently, still focused on the sculpture. _I’ll need it from all angles._ “Book’s inna shelf.”

“Yeah, I saw it, Jess,” Frank grinned. In the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Frank help himself before creakily settling himself down on his bed with a notebook. “What page was it?”

“Forty-three.” Jesse hefted the camera, peering through the lens. _I guess the Photography class is going to come in handy._ Leaning over the ten-inch high tangle, he hit a button.

_Flash!_

Setting aside the first picture the camera spat out, Jesse captured the ugly mess from all three hundred and sixty degrees, and then from the top too, just in case. He had six photos by the time he was done, quietly developing themselves off to one side of the desk. “S’Muggle film?”

“Yep. Did you find the answer to question seven?”

“It’s in there,” Jess said distractedly. Metal was cool under his fingers. _This one goes through here, wraps off underneath – so’s I gotta get this one out first, before I unknot the center –_

Frank’s hand hit his shoulder as he peered over Jesse. “What are you doing?”

“Recreatin’ it. Hush.”

Instead of going back to the assignment for Potions & Paints, Frank watched as Jesse pulled the wire tangle apart, to come up with twenty-eight wires of varying widths, lengths and colors.

“What now?”

This was where sculpture failed him. Three dimensions just didn’t make the same sense that two did. _That don’t matter none, Jesse Oliver. Just . . . do something new._ So he took a wire. Coiled it absently around his finger. Stuck another one through it; wove two more together, and gradually shapes started to emerge. Nothing that made sense, nothing he could see – but then one curl of wire tuned into the bill of a duck. Another became its foot; then a wing took shape.

“Heh. I’ll be damned.” Frank stared at the final product, absently slipping his finished Potions & Paints assignment into a folder. “Recreate, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jesse scratched at his bangs. “What’d you do?”

“My object was an empty Pepsi can,” Frank grimaced.

Jesse settled his new sculpture out of reach. “Damn.”

“Yeah. So,” and Frank reached into his closet, digging down under shoes and dirty laundry to pull out a massive –

_Oh, Lord._

“So I drank a lot of Pepsi to ‘re-create’ the empty Pepsi can, and then stuck ‘em all together to ‘re-create’ the sculpture. What d’you think?”

“I think I’m still pickin’ my jaw up from the floor somewhere,” Jesse told him.

Frank scowled. “Idiot.”

“Dork.”

“ _Painter_.”

“ _Hacker,_ ” Jesse shot back.

“Wh- what!” Frank sputtered. “I do not -”

“Well I sure don’t call what you do sculpture,” Jesse said meanly. “You’re hackin’ away at that marble you got there, not carving it.”

“That’s it,” Frank announced. The massive Pepsi contraption was delicately returned to its nest of stinky shirts and moldy socks, closet door sliding carefully closed. “For that, you will pay.”  

Jesse drew himself up, and said, in his most kingly voice, “I think not.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Two seconds later they were wrestling across the room; Jesse was pushing for the door, and Frank trying to get him in a headlock. _C’mon, just a little –_

“No way,” his roomie grunted, “am I letting you out so’s you can use those freakish long legs.”

Jesse ducked out of the attempted headlock, slipping a foot behind Frank’s ankle and tripping him up. “No way am I lettin’ you get your meat hooks ‘round my neck again,” he declared, vaulting onto Frank’s bed and over the desk.

Landing right next to the door.

_Ha!_

One hand on the cool brass knob, Jesse smirked.

Frank froze, half-lunging over the bed. “Okay,” he said, real easy-like. Two hands came up. “Let’s not do anything hasty, here, Jesse.”

“Hasty?” Jesse inquired, innocently as he could. The knob turned with a satisfying _click_.

“Okay, okay,” Frank sighed. Stood out of his lunge to his full height of six-one, an inch shorter than the roommate who never let him forget it.

Jesse grinned. _Oh, victory!_

“Truce?” His roommate offered a hand.

Suspicious brown eyed him, considering. _Well._ He’d eaten a lot at dinner, and it would weigh him down a little. Not enough to make a difference in whether he got away or not – but enough to make sure he wouldn’t be feeling too good when he stopped. “Truce.”

They shook, once.

Then Frank’s fingers tightened around his own, yanking Jesse forward and down into a headlock. _Yaaah!_

“This,” Frank announced, dodging Jesse’s attempts to whale him one in the head, “is why growing up with sisters will always put you at a disadvantage. I had a brother. He would _never_ fall for that. Anymore, at least.”

_Ow, damn – what’s that smell – eugh, gross -_ “Okay, okay,” Jesse grunted. Long arms swiped at Frank, fingers curling around the bicep that had pulled him tight to the bulkier boy’s ribs. “Uncle!”

"The undefeated champion!” Frank pumped a fist into the air, and Jesse snorted as he bowed to an invisible crowd.

“Yeah, champion o’stink,” he said rudely. “Ain’t you never showered?”

“Man, Jesse, only you could get away with the backwoods double-negative,” Frank’s head shook, white teeth gleaming against dark skin.

Jesse snorted again, dropping against the scratchy blankets rumpled over a firm mattress. _Time to try out a new California word._ “Whatever.”

“I knew it! I knew Cali was getting to you, man, I knew it!” Frank’s grin was impossible. _That’s it._

Jesse’s pillow sailed across the room with perfect aim.

It landed square in Frank’s face.       

 

* * *

 

“Huh.” _What’s he doing here?_

“What?” Ryan stopped poking the meatloaf with his fork. Green eyes were eagerly distracted, turning Jesse’s way.

“Nothin’.” Jesse swallowed his own bite, waving a knife toward the line of students with trays and cutlery waiting to load up on food. “Just. That’s Mr. Abbiati. What’s he doin’ in the freshman’s cafeteria?”

“How can you eat that?” Frank was looking at Jesse’s half-empty plate in disgust.

“S’good,” he said thickly, through another mouthful of food. _Better’n May Belle’s cookin’, for sure._

“Dude,” Ryan’s tray slid toward the center of the table as he pushed it away. “It’s the night the Dean was going to come eat with us. Mingle with the students, or whatever. Which is why we’ve got such weird food – it’s all stuff he ate when he was a student here.”

_Wait a minute._ Jesse paused, spoonful of corn halfway to his lips. “Mr. Abbiati’s the _Dean?_ ”

Frank finished sucking down soda with a contented _ahhhh._ “Man,” he burped. “Please don’t tell me you got through half the year without knowing who the Dean is!”

"No, no, I know him. Seen him around, y’know, talked to him and stuff.”

“You have?” Frank’s brow wrinkled. “When?” he asked at last.

“Move-in day,” Jesse shrugged. It wasn’t that big a deal, he guessed. “I showed up early, and he helped me get settled and stuff.”

A snort came from further down the table. “Yeah, because you’re this year’s golden boy.”

“Shut up, Tim,” Ryan threw back rudely.

“No, because I got here early,” Jesse snapped.         

“Right,” the blond boy drawled, pushing back his chair. “I forgot. Hitched your way across America, ‘cause you’re so tight for money. Got a trucker to give you a lift. And just how did you pay for _that_ , Aarons? On your knees?”

He couldn’t remember being so furious since Leslie died. “Fuck off.”      

“You first,” Tim smirked. “Oh, wait, I forgot _._ You already did.”

Hands on his shoulders were the only things that kept him from lunging at the asshole. _Frank._ His roomie had an iron grip. “Chill, Jesse.”

 “C’mon, man, cool it.” Ryan sneered at Tim, green eyes spitting fire. “Jealous bastard just wants you to beat the crap out of him right in front of the Dean.”

Quick as it appeared, the fury vanished, banished by reason. _Ryan’s right._ He’d lose his scholarship, and that was the only thing that even let him be there at all.

Jesse met Frank’s eyes, conveying _It’s okay_ and _Thank you_ with a nod; the bulkier boy let him go. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, keeping his voice steady.

Tim grinned, maliciousness in every line of his face. Mr. Abbiati, however, was glancing their way, preventing him from saying anything.

“Alright,” Frank announced the minute southern California’s winter chill smacked them in the face. “Council of war, meeting at Ruloff’s. As Councilor calling the meeting to session, it’s my treat. C’mon.”

“We’re gonna get him,” Ryan vowed, ducking into his hoodie against the chill. Their feet turned from the dining hall, and toward Collegetown. “And not get caught,” he added as an afterthought.

The grin caught him by surprise. Jesse had no idea how, but he’d ended up with friends.

 

* * *

 

“End-of-year projects.”

A collective groan sounded through the studio; Jesse snickered at the look of torture on Frank’s face. Ryan had slumped tragically against his easel, the very picture of despair.

Professor Sherbourne’s grin could only be described as wicked. “Go see your advisors. They’ll hand you your assignments – all of your professors have collaborated, looking for your weak spots. _That_ will be your assignment; your weakest point.”

“Crap,” Frank swore as soon as they’d handed in the day’s studio assignment – an interpretation of something new into something old. “What d’you think it’s gonna be?”

“Mine’s photography.” Ryan glumly scuffed sneakers against a doorjamb. Horror took up residence on usually smiling features. “Merlin, what if I have to do another photo-montage?”

“Oh, God, Potions & Paints.” Dark eyes widened. The number of students in the hallway petered out as they got further down the corridor. “They’ll – they’ll make me mix up a full friggin’ pallet – I’m so screwed!”

“Sculpture,” Jesse winced. _Less said ‘bout that, the better._

Ryan was the first to peel off from the trio, ducking into his advisor’s office with a wary grin. “Wish me luck.”

“Dude,” Frank snorted. “I’m gonna need all my luck, can’t go givin’ it away on a lost cause -”

Ryan threw a punch, which was absorbed by a bulky shoulder; Frank just laughed. But Jesse’s roommate was headed directly across the hall, throwing him a wry glance.

_Louisa Lefévre_ was sparkling on his advisor’s door.  He knocked.

“Come in!”

The door opened on tie-dyed robes. Professor Lefévre’s curls bunched into a bun at the base of her neck as she sat behind the desk, papers piled neatly across its surface. “Jesse!”

He stepped forward only just in time to politely shake her hand. “Hi, Professor.”

“Let me guess. You’re here for your close of term project assignment.”

Cloth cushioning, streaked with paint and spotted with bleach, gave way beneath him. “Yes’m.”

“Well, then, let’s see.” Praper rustled, and Jesse watched fingers delve into stacks, searching. “Here we go.” After a minute or so, Louisa looked up. “Why is it that you never do portraits, Jesse?”

His breath caught, somewhere deep in his lungs.

Louisa was waiting for an answer.

“Can’t,” he managed, real careful-like. _Can’t._ There was a face stuck in his mind, blurred by time, that got in the way whenever he tried.

“You’re not lacking in talent,” she frowned, missing the point entirely.

“No.” Jesse shook his head, knuckles whiting on the arms of his chair. His eyes found a specific spatter of pain on the walls that looked like a breeze, and stayed there. “ _Can’t._ ”

Gentleness, now, beating over him like the flutterings of a bird’s wings, or tufts of dandelion down. “Why not?”

“Can’t catch a soul that’s already . . . gone,” he managed, quietly. Couldn’t say, _the only real friend I ever had died when we were ten_ , that she was the only one who had believed in him, for the longest time. That the only portrait he had ever wanted to paint was hers.

That he couldn’t remember her smile, not after nine years.

“I’m sorry, Jesse,” the Professor replied.

 Jesse blinked. _What’d ‘sorry’ ever do for anybody?_

“But that is still your assignment.”

_Ah._ That explained the apology, then.

Shoving away from his chair, Jesse managed a polite nod before sliding out the door and into the empty corridor. _Damn._

* * *

 

Oblivious to any observers, May Belle was twirling across painted grass, a crown of greenest ivy tangled in her hair. _Second Queen of Terabithia_ , proclaimed small white words at the bottom center of the canvas, peeking out from beneath her toes and between blades of darkest emerald.

Settling the canvas on his easel in the gallery of freshman end-of-term projects, Jesse scrubbed a nervous hand through his hair. Taking two steps back, he surveyed it again, head tilted to one side.           

On the edges of the painting encroached trunks and vines, grass and berries – the slightest hints of forest alluded to in the background. But all the detail and attention had been given to the girl of fifteen dancing in the sunlit center, barest hints of the woman she would be shining through in face and body.

It was a portrait.

May Belle had sent him the picture of the family that Momma had taken for Easter, and Jesse had pulled her out of the side of the image and onto canvas after many fruitless sketches of a form without a complete face, what little he could remember of Leslie.

_Shoulda been her._

But he couldn’t remember his Queen’s visage properly; had no pictures to guide him, and without _something_ other than his memory, he would never be able to do her justice. As it was, this portrait was a little strange in the proportions when she moved, and she couldn’t leave the canvas or speak because he didn’t know the proper spells for something that complex.

 But it was a true reflection of his sister’s soul, and _that_ was the most important part.

_S’not so bad, I guess._ But it didn’t thrill his heart, the way other challenges did when he defeated them. He didn’t . . . love this portrait. And Jesse had no idea why. It wasn’t bad, by any means – if it wasn’t for his reluctance to place a bit of his sister’s soul on display, and the spellwork that went with it, he’d say it was his best painting. It had dimensionality, depth, and color; all the lines were perfect.

_It just. It could be so much more._

And it _wasn’t._ Some of it was that he hadn’t been taught the proper spells yet. May Belle would love it when he gave it to her for her birthday, but the littlest thing made her happy.

There was the noise of other students wandering the gallery, getting closer.

Jesse took one last look at May Belle’s portrait, in a line of paintings large and small, and turned his feet toward summer.


	2. Chapter 2

"I give you the graduates of the Class of 1992!"

The magnified echo of Mr. Abbiati's voice was drowned in the thunderous roar of the crowd, pointed caps shooting victoriously into blue sky on a stream of sparks. Jesse pumped a fist into the air, yelling, Ryan's voice loud in the row behind him. People were moving now, and the chaos of voices and laughter only got thicker as Jesse used his height to search through the sudden jumble of people.

"Didn't think we'd make it, did you!" Cap lost in the trample, gown rumpled, Frank shouted to be heard over the delighted chatter of two hundred former students and their families as he darted forward from the back section of students. His grin threatened to split his face; Jesse could feel the power his portrait would make, in this moment.

"Naw," he scoffed, grinning himself. "I knew _I_ was gonna make it. You, I wasn't so sure about."

"Hah!" A heavy fist beat companionably against his shoulder. Frank straightened suddenly. "Look, there're my parents! Huh. Who's that they're talking to?"

Jesse scanned the crowd, searching for the wizard and witch who had been kind enough to take him into their Southern California home over the many school breaks. And felt his jaw hit his chest in surprise. _Momma?_ The man in the suit at her side turned just so, and Jesse recognized his father. "My parents," he managed, stunned. _What are they – how did they get here?_

"Well, c'mon then!" Frank grabbed Jesse's arm, sculptor's muscles dragging him through the giddy crowd of graduates.

"Yeah, we're real proud," he heard his father say to Mr. Jacobs. _They are?_ Momma, maybe, but Dad never –

" _Jesse!_ "

A hundred-fifty pounds of squealing girl barreled into him, and Jesse was knocked back against Frank in shock. Beaming brown eyes turned his way, and he gaped. "May Belle?"

She'd grown tall and slender, different than Brenda and Ellie in that she too had gotten their father's height rather than their mother's shorter, blockish figure. At eighteen, she was almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and that surprised him more than anything. Outside of pictures in the post, he hadn't seen her since he'd left for California.

"Hey, Jesse," and his attention was drawn to the sixteen-year-old following in her wake. Joyce Ann had stretched out too over the years he'd been at school, losing the last of her baby fat and, from her smile, a bit of the selfishness that came part'n'parcel with being the littlest in the family. But not the tendency toward jabbering.

"Brenda and Willard are here too, with Clyde and Denice," the youngest Aarons babbled. "Ellie's over there, talkin' to someone." She barely got the words out before Jesse's oldest sister and her husband, with the two kids in tow, descended on them, squabbling like chickens.

"Whoa," he heard Frank mutter behind him.

 _Ooops._ "Um, Brenda, Willard, this is my friend Frank Jacobs," Jesse warily started the introductions. He could see the tightening of Brenda's lips at the color of Frank's skin. Anger started a slow bubble under his own, but Jesse held his tongue. "Frank, this is my oldest sister, Brenda Hughes, and her husband Willard. That there are their young 'uns. Clyde's six and Denice is three."

"Nice ta meetcha," Willard grunted, shaking Frank's hand abruptly. Brenda nodded, one bob of coiffed brown curls, before turning to Jesse. Denise peeked one blue eye out from where her face was buried against her momma's shoulder, and hid away again at Frank's smile.

"You seen Ellie, Jesse?" Brenda's shrill voice, made harsher by motherhood, had Jesse wincing.

"Naw. Might wanna ask Joyce Ann, she saw her 'bout a minute ago." And the youngest Aarons sister had disappeared, Jesse noted; drifting from his attention and not with his parents, who were still uncomfortably locked in conversation with Frank's. May Belle stayed perched at his side.

His oldest sister huffed and disappeared into the heated press of the crowd, tugging her son along by one hand. A second later, her voice skittered high above the noise of laughing people, yelling for Joyce Ann.

"You have a lot of sisters." Frank's eyes were a bit dazed.

May Belle laughed.

"You knew I had four of 'em," Jesse responded. "You seen Ryan anywheres?"

Frank snorted, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. "They seem like a lot more in person. And yeah, I think he was back over that way." Twisting, Jesse's old roommate pointed at a cluster of people edging ever closer to the stadium's entrance, the mass dotted every so often with a tasseled black cap.

"What you wanna bet we can find him and get back here before Brenda comes back?" Jesse winked at May Belle.

His sister smirked, smoothing her dress against the heat. She held up a wrist, showing him Momma's old watch sitting there. "I'll time ya. It's not like we don't know where you're living, anyways. I'll keep 'um occupied a bit."

"Sweet," Frank grinned, grabbing him by the sleeve of his robe. "C'mon!" As they were slipping into the crowd, the sculptor snapped his fingers. "By the way. You never said what you're doing after graduation, Jess."

Jesse let a grin curl the side of his mouth. He'd known ages ago, but Frank's pestering had prompted him to snap his jaw shut on the information, tighter than a cat with a mouthful of feathers. "Real subtle, there."

Dark eyes rolled impatiently as Frank shoved through the boisterous mass of people. "No more stalling, or I'll _make_ you tell me. I don't think you'll be running anywhere in this mess."

Tripping over someone's discarded black gown, Jesse winced. _Good point. Where the hell did Ryan get off to so fast?_ "I've got an apprenticeship." He couldn't keep the pride out of his voice, and didn't really try.

"Really?" Genuine gladness filled his roommate's voice as he turned sideways to slide between a rather abundant woman and someone's tiny grandfather. "Who with?"

"Louis Rooiakker."

"Are you _kidding?_ " Frank swung around to face him, fingers gripping Jesse's shoulders hard through his gown. "He's the premier wizarding portrait artist in the United States, Jesse!"

"I know."

"You tight-lipped bastard," his roommate breathed, eyes smiling. "I can't believe you didn't say anything!" Frank whirled, plunging back into the mesh of people with a vengeance. "C'mon," he yelled back. "Now we _really_ gotta find Ryan!"

Jesse laughed, bright and joyous, and darted after him.

* * *

_Hmmm._

He was a little buzzed, just enough to turn the edges of the night soft and fuzzy. The graduation celebration had wound down over an hour ago, Frank and Ryan's families headed out to hotels for the night before his friends started home for the summer.

"They're brighter at home," May Belle murmured.

Shingles itched under his scalp as Jesse rolled his head her way. The two of them had left the rest of the family sleeping in the small apartment Jesse had spent the last three years living in, climbing up to the roof just to _be_ ; quiet and together and apart, in a way they hadn't for four years. She was the only one of his sisters who understood him, and the only one he came close to understanding. _Most'a the time._ _Brighter?_ "What?"

Brown eyes met his, laughing. "You're tipsy, ain't you."

"Not more'n a little," he protested. He lifted his arms up, folding his hands behind his head.

She giggled, dodging an out-flung elbow. "The stars," his sister continued after a moment. May Belle shifted against the harsh, sandpapery stuff that got slapped down over thin board for roofing, and folded her hands over her stomach. "They're brighter at home. 'Bout the only thing that is."

"Light pollution." But there was something odd in her voice – and when he figured it out the shock nearly rolled him right off the roof. As it was he jerked up, braced on his forearms, and had to work to keep his jaw from completely unhinging. "You _miss_ it there? You ain't been gone a week!"

May Belle kept her eyes on the sky, steadfastly refusing to meet his gaze. "Don't you?"

"No," Jesse said decisively, settling back down with a _thump_ that probably woke someone up beneath them. "Not a jot."

Dad had wanted nothing more than for his son to grow up, inherit the farm. That hadn't been Jesse's dream, ever.

"I do." May Belle said it so quietly he almost missed it. And then she spoke quick and loud to cover. "Ellie and Brenda can't get enough of Ca-li-for-ni-a." She pronounced each section of the word with a deliberately acerbic twang.

"Can't get enough of the city," Jesse corrected, sobering with the discussion and cool night air. _On and on about it, caught up in the 'glamour' of it. Lord, it's San Diego! Glamour?!_ "Joyce Ann too." And that had surprised him a bit. Joyce Ann hadn't seemed much like their older sisters at first, but teenage stuff had a way of twisting the head all around. "Betcha Brenda convinces Willy to move."

"Mmm." May Belle sighed a little, sitting up to look over at him, refusing to take the bait. "I don't know as the city suits you, though, Jess."

"It suits me," he grumbled back, with four years of teasing and insults about his backwoods upbringing behind the automatic rebuttal. For sure and it didn't suit _her._ Jesse never could see a king when he looked in the mirror anymore, though he could feel it crop up every now and again in odd ways.

But May Belle still _looked_ like a queen, somehow, even with her knees pulled up to her chin and long hair twisting with the wind. And somehow it didn't fit with steel and concrete and glass.

"I think you made it suit you," she decided. One finger scraped at the rough shingling as his sister peered out at him from underneath a curtain of brown strands. He didn't meet her eyes. "Broke it all to pieces, and fit the edges around you smooth instead of jagged so's it would let you through."

"Now you're the one soundin' tipsy," Jesse snorted. But he knew for a fact she hadn't touched a drop, just some sparkling cider. It got him all twitchy, for some reason.

A hard poke in his ribs sent him squirming away. "Quit it."

The silence that followed wasn't something she'd learned until she became Queen of Terabithia, Jesse remembered. Until she'd stopped being a screechy little girl, and became a lady far different than the ladies Brenda and Ellie tried to copy. So he kept from opening his yap because whatever she was about to say was why they were out here in the first place.

"I 'member Leslie," May Belle burst out suddenly. Jesse started, opening his mouth, but she barged on. "I know you think I don't, but I do, Jesse. We wasn't soulmates or nothin', like you two was, but she was my friend too."

Anger flushed through him, searing and immediate. The growl started low in his throat. "May Belle -"

Her hair whipped back, one finger coming up. Brown eyes glinted in the glow of the streetlamps. "I _remember_ ," she said, grinding every syllable out soft and fierce.

Jesse stared. _Is she – is she crying?_

Because even this, now, wasn't the heart of the matter. Not entirely.

May Belle hitched a sob, and Jesse did the only thing he could do, ever since she was little, by gathering her up in a hug. "Hush now," he murmured, low. "Hush-a-bye, May Belle."

"She loved runnin', and outsmartin' all those bullies. And she was magic, too, wasn't she? She was, I know it, and don't you tell me no different, Jesse Oliver!"

 _Yeah, she was._ Jesse patted his sister's back, letting her fists crumple his best shirt and tears soak it through. "What's this all about, May Belle?"

There was a sniff against his shoulder. Ribs expanded under his palm in a shuddery sigh. "She was magic, and it was okay. Everyone looked at her like she was maybe weird, but not _bad_ weird, y'know? And you, bein' the only boy, it was fine too. Half the time Daddy looked fit to bust with pride, every time someone got to askin' about his son, off on scholarship."

There was no surprise this time; he knew what she was going to say, and he'd always sort of known it. _May Belle's got the magic._ But even as he tried to turn her chin up, she buried her face against his crumpled shirt, breath hot in the cool night.

"But me." His little sister wrenched away, bitter as turpentine. "Momma don't ever know what to do with me, and Daddy looks at me sideways, like he's wonderin' what went wrong. Brenda an' Ellie ain't no help when they visit, with their natterin' on about how it ain't _proper_ for a girl to get 'notions'."

At that Jesse couldn't contain his snort. _'Notions' is all those two ever was._ "Magic ain't a _notion_. An' what about Joyce Ann? I notice she ain't starrin' in this little drama o' yours."

May Belle's voice was stuffy, still wet with tears. "Joyce Ann's the worst. 'Cause she wanted to have the magic too, but she don't. She started actin' all like Brenda and Ellie, with a heapin' dose of spite in it."

The night slid between them, chill and stifling. Jesse searched his brain for something to say, but his mind was a blank canvas. _Damn._

May Belle sniffled.

He dug into his pocket, searching past a nub of charcoal and some loose change. _I know I put it here somewheres –_ soft paper met his seeking fingers. He reached out a hand, settling it carefully on May Belle's shoulder. "My Lady?" Jesse proffered the tissue.

Her smile was unexpected, the dip of her head no more than a grateful queen would bestow upon her equal. "My thanks."

Just like that, the moment carefully folded itself away.

"I paint," Jesse tried, scrabbling to keep the lingering feeling of Terabithia even as it slowly pulled inside each of them. "What do you do?"

The tissue was compressed into a tiny ball, and hidden inside May Belle's fist. Brown eyes met his, their sparkle distant. But the Queen was still there. "Sometimes . . . I see things. In the morning mist on the fields, and the sunlight beaming through the leaves. Or in the icicles hanging from the barn roof, and the black of the river under your bridge. Once, in the flight of birds against the sky, and the way autumn leaves wrote themselves on the ground."

 _Divination._ The breath he pulled in clogged in his throat. "Lord, May Belle."

Those far-seeing eyes blinked, and suddenly she was his little sister again. Red painted her cheeks with embarrassment. "I dunno what it all means when it happens, an' I can't _make_ it happen. It just does."

"You gotta get some teachin'," Jesse met her gaze, fear a frantic bubble expanding in his guts. True Seers were very rare, and if she was strong enough to be Seeing without training, there was a very slim chance it could spiral out of her control, send her careening into madness. _Not gonna risk it._ "You hear me? I'll talk to Daddy, first thing in the mornin'. You can't be goin' with no training, May Belle."

Long hair dipped in a nod. "I know." She didn't need to say, _I saw it_ , because Jesse was suddenly sure that she had. And even if she hadn't, May Belle had enough mule-stubborn to get whatever she wanted. "I'm goin' to school," she murmured, real quiet-like. Determination coated her in shades of moonlight. "For magic."

* * *

"Aarons!"

 _Put it down quick, don't slip, don't run._ Jesse settled the slice of wood with its myriad drabs of color against the table, steering clear of the easel and its half-worked canvas. "Yessir?"

"You done with that palette yet?"

Master Rooiakker was a gruff man who never actually _spoke_ ; he growled and snapped and snarled like an ornery coonhound, even to his customers. Unremarkable in height and stature, he reminded Jesse a little of his father, with gruff emotion and little use for words unless he was teaching or ordering Jesse about. Then, he could be surprisingly eloquent.

"Yessir."

"Hmph." Nimble fingers lifted the palette, turning it as Rooiakker eyed the pigments and consistencies of the paints Jesse had made not two days before. A corner of his mouth twitched in something approaching approval. "Good, Aarons, good."

Jesse grinned. "Thank you, sir."

"The store needs tending, Aarons, get on it."

 _Three months and you'd think he'd use my name._ But Master Rooiakker had let thick eyebrows scratch his hairline when Jesse'd re-introduced himself, and called him by his surname ever since.

Passing through a small anteroom where framing materials were stored, Jesse emerged into the store and settled himself behind the counter. For a world-renowned artist skilled in portraiture, the store itself was not at first glance what Jesse'd imagined rich people to approve of. It was very bare and both walls and carpet were kept a pristine white. What little decoration was there was not ornate. Though he'd been caught off-guard by the realization that all the light fixtures were gilded with eighteen-carat gold.

_"It keeps the focus on the portraits and the frames," Master Rooiakker explained. Jesse's eyes were drawn in turn to each display of skill; wizarding men and women moving across painted canvasses. "The entire room is the background for what's inside, and it needs not draw attention. Mattings are there to subtly emphasize the details, or bring out muted colors in the painting, or even provide a transitional space between painting, frame and wall." One hand swept wide, indicating the entirety of the room. "Light is extremely important; the amount and shade, the angle it comes from. Changing any of these can change even a finished portrait."_

Three months, and Jesse's brain had never been so full.

His fingers had never been so idle; he wasn't allowed to touch a brush other to clean it, for the first six months. Including his wand, unless for spellwork.

_"Basics first," Rooiakker grumbled on his third night in the artist's home. "Let's see what background you've been given in the art of different cultures."_

Whatever his previous knowledge was on almost any subject, it turned out to be "passable", and Rooiakker would just heap another book into his arms with instructions to have it memorized in two weeks.

Jesse loved it.

* * *

"Listen closely, because this is a very delicate spell." Rooiakker locked eyes with Jesse. "You ever been fishing?"

Jesse blinked. "Yessir. Been awhile, though -"

"That's not important," his Master raised a hand, as if wiping clean an invisible slate. "What's important is that you understand the idea. You're casting out a line. But you're not looking to _catch_ anything, per se. You want to just touch the spirit, pull an impression from it, and then let it go. It's more than enough to animate the portrait, and if you take anything more, you risk irreparable damage."

A lump hit Jesse's throat, and it took a few tries before he could gulp it down. "Damage?"

"I imagine you've heard of Dorian Gray?" Blue eyes scrutinized him.

It was times like these that Jesse felt his Muggle background most keenly. He shifted against the thick wooden bench, uncomfortable. "Ah, nosir."

The bushy eyebrows made a run for Rooiakker's hairline, but the man only pursed his lips. "Well, then." And instead of handing him a book, his Master folded his hands on the table between them and leant forward. "Dorian Gray was an American wizard born in the mid eighteen-hundreds, with an avid interest in art. From the rich class, with an inheritance – which meant he could spend all his time on portraiture without starving. A life of leisure, I believe is the phrase."

Jesse couldn't imagine what that might be like.

"He was taught the spells for portraiture by a somewhat mediocre artist named Basil Hallward. Either Gray never quite mastered them, or he learned the spells well enough to re-write them; no one really knows for sure." Rooiakker's voice was a bass growl. "But somehow, instead of taking just the image of a soul when he painted portraits, he managed to get hooks into the soul of his subject, too. And when he had the soul in his grasp, he carved a piece off, and ate it."

"What?!" Jesse could taste bile, knuckles pressing white around the edge of the table. _Oh, Lord._

Rooiakker barely paused, remaining very contained as he told the story. "The first portrait Gray ever made was that of a young lady named Sibyl Vane, who consented to give him a few drops of blood to mix in with his paints. Later, he claimed that the spells had somehow gone awry during the drying, but when Miss Vane got a good look at the portrait, she refused to pay him – because he had painted her not as she was, but as she would appear in sixty years. Naturally, she was rather upset."

"Naturally," Jesse agreed, but he didn't know the spells well enough to have an idea where the story was going. _I just don't like the sound of that._ He loosened his grip on the table's edge, flexing his fingers against the surface.

"After the incident got out, he gained several reputable clients with an unfortunate interest in Divination. He styled himself as the man who could paint someone's future." Rooiakker shrugged flannelled shoulders, taking a sip of butterbeer. The bottle _clink_ ed as he set it back down; the only sound in the room. "The elite, magical and Muggle, wanted to know what they would look like in their old age, and Gray had many to choose from. They let him peck at their souls like a vulture, ripping chunks off as he pleased. The fools never bothered to ask for a look at Gray's own portrait."

"He made a self-portrait?" Jesse couldn't help but be a little fascinated and horrified, at the same time. _That's . . . creepy._

Rooiakker nodded, square face set in grim lines. "He did. The first wizards who tried to kill him thought that he was collecting bits of people's souls, and somehow siphoning them off to his own portrait. He'd mixed his own blood with the paint of it, as he did for all the portraits, creating a link between the subject and the portrait. But his own only showed him as he was, instead of aged as his other subjects. So it was thought that he was using the portrait-spells to divert bits of soul to his own portrait, and then by keeping his portrait young he too stayed young."

A frown worked its way over Jesse's forehead; he could feel it. "But that don't make sense," he blurted, before he could stop and think about it. "If a portrait is made of someone, it's only a – a stamp of that moment. The link goes from subject to portrait, not the other way round. Even puttin' blood in would only make the link stronger, not reverse it. You'd need a completely different spell to -"

"Exactly," his Master snapped, snatching up his bottle with ill-concealed fury. "You see, the day after her portrait was complete, Miss Vance became 'incurably ill', in the words of her mediwitch. She died of what was classified at the time as a 'wasting disease'. Her corpse appeared terribly aged. Gray kept the manner of her death quiet for some years, styling it as a suicide. But eventually people started to notice that he was barely aging, even for wizarding kind; and that the subjects of his portraits seemed to all be catching the same 'wasting disease'."

 _They gave him blood, and permission,_ Jesse realized. _Lord, that would let him do whatever he wanted!_ His stomach roiled unpleasantly, the supper he'd consumed not an hour before hinting at making a reappearance.

"When he was finally caught, fifty years later, they thought he was painting them into death, and that it only took a few days for the flesh to catch up to the picture he made. Because the spell he was casting was a net – only one that took years yet to be lived from the subjects, rather than giving them their years all at once, as it was reckoned at the time."

"He wasn't? 'Painting them into death'?" Taking a deep breath against his unsettled gut, Jesse propped his elbows on the table; a habit that would have gotten him a swat on the head from Momma.

"The portraits were accurate pictures of what was happening to their souls as he painted. Even the 'wasting disease' was only a symptom of what he was really doing." His Master leant back against his own chair, the perpetual furrow between his brows somewhat deeper than the norm. "Soul-magic is very dangerous; usually only those willing to delve into the Darkest of magics meddle with soul-spells. Before Gray, most people underestimated the power of portraiture. And since he was imprisoned, many have forgotten. As artists we are only safe because our spells just take a brief, impermanent cast of the soul. We don't touch or toy with them."

Stomach finally calming, Jesse risked a sip of butterbeer. He rolled the glass between his palms a moment. "Sir, you said something about Gray's self-portrait, before. That Gray's customers should have asked to see it. Why?"

"Hmph." Rooiakker raised the butterbeer to his lips, draining the last of the bottle. "The portrait was like all his others – it showed Gray's soul. He tampered with Dark magic to keep his youth." His Master's expression of honest loathing was startlingly vitriolic. "But even if it wasn't outlined in his flesh, that kind of magic leaves a mark _somewhere._ And the soul of someone so deeply entrenched in Dark magic is . . . not pretty to see. I think I have a copy of it, somewhere." His Master pushed his chair back, standing.

 _Please please please don't let him say it's "art, in its own way"._ Jesse had heard that phrase a lot over the last half-year, but didn't think he could bear it now.

Rooiakker walked to the bookshelf that encompassed half his kitchen walls, reaching high to pull a thin tome from the shelf. He handed it to Jesse, who took it gingerly; the cover was browned with age and the sheets of delicate paper were only held together by a binding/preservation spell.

The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Rooiakker leant over his shoulder to poke at the title. "This was written by a Muggle, Oscar Wilde. He heard the story secondhand in a Muggle pub, of course, so most of the wizarding elements were omitted. Wilde was an Englishman as well, and he wrote what he knew, so the tale was transplanted across the Atlantic. It got also turned into a story about moral turpitude and he laid far too much blame on Basil Hallward, who was barely involved, but you should read it nonetheless. Most of the ethical decline he documents was true, as were the murders."

 _Murders?_ Jesse swallowed, listening to the footsteps as his Master moved across the room. _He was a Dark wizard. America's been lucky. We haven't had a rash of them, like in Europe, but still._ There were more than enough wizarding criminals to ensure that America had a justice system to deal with them. "Sir?"

Rooiakker paused on the verge of leaving the room. "Yes, Aarons?"

Jesse weighed the question for a moment, not sure if he wanted to ask it. He'd learned that Rooiakker always answered questions fully, no matter what. _Doesn't matter. I . . . I need to know._ "What happened to Dorian Gray, sir?"

The older man went still, leaning against the doorjamb. "He was caught in the late 1930's, and locked away in Mojave Wizarding Prison. His portrait was hung on the wall of his cell, with a mirror opposite. Five years ago, he started aging rapidly, gaining fifty years in a matter of days. In a fit of rage, he shattered the mirror and used a piece of it to shred the painting, before stabbing himself in the heart. He was found dead in his cell the next morning."

* * *

_Brrring!_

Wand in hand, Jesse eyed the wet canvas. " _Tinxi._ "

The paint glistened, just a bit, and nothing else happened. The sigh breathed out of Jesse's lungs in a whoosh. _Yes!_ The fourth canvas, and he finally had the charm perfect. _Just a touch of power, no more._ His first attempt had been a little to enthusiastic; instead of moistening the paint enough to ensure slow drying, he'd watered it down so much that the entire canvas had blurred to a soaked, colored blob.

 _Acrylic. Ugh._ He preferred oils, despite the ridiculous amount of time they needed to dry. It was no wonder he hadn't come across this charm before.

_Brrring!_

The bell in the main reception of the store was still ringing; whoever was waiting was getting impatient. Jesse straightened his shirt, taking long steps to open the door that closed off the studio from the gallery. "Can I help you?"

"Jesse!"

He'd no sooner emerged into the gallery floor than he was ambushed from two sides and buried in backslapping hugs. "Happy birthday, dude!"

"Yeah! Happy Birthday!"

A laugh bubbled up from deep within as he recognized the voices. Jesse fought free of his friends, grinning. "Frank! Ryan!"

"Who else?" Ryan was wearing a cocky smirk, and -

"Is that a _suit_?" Jesse stared at the jacket, collared shirt and tie, beneath what were quite obviously business robes. _Lord, he's even got the shoes to go with it._

Ryan's face turned the color of a tomato, and green eyes wouldn't meet his gaze. "So what if it is?"

"C'mon, we're going out," Frank interrupted. He too was dressed smarter than Jesse was used to seeing, though the sculptor had foregone the business robes.

 _Not like I can talk._ He was balancing catering to customers on the gallery floor with continuing several ongoing projects in the back, and as such was dressed accordingly.

 _Wait – going?_ "Where?" _No way Rooiakker will let me have the afternoon off._ And no telling how long his friends had in town, especially at the same time. _Damn._ Jesse sighed."I can't. Gotta finish up here." It was only just one o'clock; he wouldn't be off until after dark. "How long you guys gonna be here?" _Maybe they'll have time tonight._ He hadn't seen his friends in ages, but birthday or not, Jesse had work to do.

A hand latched onto his arm, dragging him inexorably towards the door. "Wait, Frank, no, I'm serious, I gotta -"

"Nope, none of that!" Ryan joined in, circling behind him to plant his hands on Jesse's shoulder blades and push.

"Jesse, relax," Frank laughed. "I fire-called Mr. Rooiakker last week. He said it was okay."

 _Yeah, right._ Jesse opened his mouth, about to protest, and was cut off by the quiet bell ringing as the door to the gallery opened. _Oh, shit!_ He definitely wasn't the image of cool professionalism he was _supposed_ to be for the customers –

Rooiakker raised a brow at him from the threshold, mouth pressed tight.

Jesse gulped. "Sir?"

The lined face softened. "On with you, now, Aarons."

He was still gaping as his friends pulled him onto the sidewalk.

"So, where do you go around here to celebrate?" Frank was eyeing the establishments lining the street with a definite air of distaste. "It's too . . . stiff, around here. Fancy."

Shock still had a firm grip on his former roommate. "But – what – how did you -"

"Get your Master to let you off the leash?" Ryan winked, straightening his robes from where they'd bunched with the effort of yanking Jesse from the gallery. "It wasn't that hard, Jess. Rooiakker's not as much of a hard-ass as you seem to think."

Words left, leaving Jesse stranded and his mouth working soundlessly.

"From your letters, I thought he was gonna bite my head off for suggesting you get a break," Frank answered, still scanning the street. "Nice guy, though. We were just gonna take you out to eat tonight. He told us to take the afternoon, too."

Jesse needed to sit.

"But I don't think this is the street we want," Frank said authoritatively. "Let's go."

"You've never been to St. Louis before," Ryan interjected, indignant. "How do you know where to go?"

Jesse's old roommate snorted. "I don't. But I really doubt that a Ruth Cris Steakhouse is going to allow the kind of carousing we need."

"'Carousing'?" Skepticism coated the air around Ryan. "Are you _serious_?"

"Shut up. This way," Frank demanded, choosing a direction seemingly at random and taking off.

Which was how, an hour later, they ended up in _The Dragon's Claw_ , the mildest of establishments in the area of the city morbidly known as the Witchery Way. Settled in with pints of butterbeer, conversation lingered on their respective Apprenticeships.

"- and then I'll be done," Ryan sighed. "But now I'm thinking I might go into Management. There's tons of networking and arrangements that need to be made in the art world, especially with the mixing of Muggle and Magical art forms. Most museums don't currently display both; instead they're fixated on having only purely one "type" or the other. But I think there are some artists that would display really well together if only they were _combined_ properly." He took a long swig of his ale, smacking his lips in satisfaction.

"I got three more years," Frank sighed. Then he grinned beneath the foam coating his upper lip. "But let me tell you, Master Phaedon is _brilliant._ The getting up at four AM I could do without, but -"

Jesse's attention was caught by the snoozing portrait just across from their table as its subject woke and stretched. Frank's voice melted to a murmur in the background of his awareness as he examined the frame, looking at the spells that let the subject of the portrait move from one image to another. As there was only one other portrait in the place, the network was basic and limited.

"- letter from your sister -"

He later estimated that his sip of butterbeer cleared the opposite end of their generous table by about a foot; Jesse was too busy trying to breathe past the burning in his nostrils to pay attention at the time. Tears streamed from his eyes. " _What?_ " he choked, trying not to cough on inhaled liquid.

A broad hand smacked him firmly on the back, several times.

"You okay, man?" Ryan's face was worried, even as he threw napkins across the golden spill.

"That's not helping," he gasped past the pounding on his ribs. As soon as he had some control over his breathing, Jesse rounded on his former roommate. "Letter? From my sister?" It would only be one of them, after all, and no points for guessing who.

"Um, yes?" Brown eyes skated warily past him; Frank had a distinctly hunted expression.

"Why did you get a letter from May Belle?"

Frank winced, but met his gaze. "I've been writing her," he admitted. "She's been writing back!" he rushed in before Jesse could explode.

 _Get the facts,_ Jesse told himself. Ryan was also giving him the _Dude, chill_ glare. He took a deep breath. "Since when?"

"Since graduation."

Jesse growled, one short second away from lunging across the table. _I'mma kill him._

"Look," Frank held up two hands placatingly. "I met her at graduation, right, and then a week or so after I got a letter from her, you know, saying congrats for graduating and a whole buncha chick stuff about thanks for being good friends with you, and -"

 _Hells with that. I'mma kill_ her!

"Dude, she sent me one of those, too," Ryan interrupted. Jesse stared. Ryan shrugged, with the confidence of a man safe from persecution. "It was just a 'Congratulations, Good Luck!' sorta thing."

Frank deflated abruptly. "Really?" Jesse had never seen his former roommate that forlorn before. _Not even after Nicole dumped him sophomore year. Oh Lord, this is bad._

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Really."

"Oh."

"Oh?" Jesse prompted, as menacingly as he knew how. He leant over the table a little, just enough to get in Frank's space without getting in his face.

"Well." A broad, calloused hand scraped over Frank's buzzed hair. "I replied, and we've been pretty much writing back and forth since."

It wasn't as bad as he'd thought it might be. It was worse. "Frank. Are you _dating_ _my sister?_ " Jesse demanded, feeling anger bubbling thick and heavy. _Why'm I the last one to find out about this?_ At least Ryan looked as clueless as he felt.

Frank winced. "Sorta?"

Jesse saw every shade of red from alizarin to vermilion. " _Sorta?!_ "

"I sorta . . . maybe . . . took her to dinner? Once, or – or twice?" Dark skin had blanched, and Frank swallowed nervously when he finished speaking.

 _He went to see her at school._ Rage coalesced into something slightly more reasonable, but no less deadly, with the knowledge that this wasn't just some fling. Not if he'd traveled all that way, Apparition or not. "Frank. You're like a brother to me," Jesse said seriously. His fingers curled into fists against the tabletop. "So I'mma give it to ya straight. May Belle's my little sister. You hurt her, I'mma kill you."

"Oh-kay," Ryan laughed nervously. Green eyes darted back and forth between them. "I think he gets it, Jesse."

"I got it," Frank met his eyes, just as grave. "I promise I won't."

"Don't promise me. Promise her." And Jesse'd thought nothing could bring out the King in him anymore, unless it was the Queen rising in May Belle. _Guess I was wrong about that._ "You'll treat her properly." _Or else._

Frank nodded, slowly.

"So," Ryan broke in nervously. He motioned a waitress for another round, clearing his throat. "How much longer d'you have with Master Rooiakker, Jesse?"

He let the subject be changed, sitting back in his chair. The napkins had soaked up the spilled butterbeer, and become a soggy mess of paper. Calmer now that he'd done something, Jesse used the bottom edge of his glass to push the wet pulp to the empty edge of the table. "A year, roundabouts."

"Only one more year?" Ryan was the one gaping, now. Their waitress slid into the silence, depositing three bottles and disappearing with alacrity.

"In the States," Jesse amended as soon as she was out of earshot. "Rooiakker wants me to travel internationally a bit, study some European originals. Which means the British Isles, 'cause the French ain't goin' so well." Not well at _all_. Even the thought made him wince.

"No Louvre or Orsay for you, then," Ryan snickered.

Jesse flicked condensation at him, grinning. _Well, maybe not right away._ "Shut up."

"So, where're you headed then? The British Museum?" Frank asked. It could have been awkward between them, after the last few minutes of conversation. But his former roommate managed to strike just the right note of casual interest, and the last remnants of tension evaporated.

"Nah," Jesse shook his head, fingers wrapped around his fresh bottle of butterbeer. "A school, actually. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"That sounds like fun," Ryan said dubiously. His nose wrinkled.

Frank frowned a little. "Sounds . . . stuffy."

"Probably will be," Jesse admitted. He flicked one finger against cool glass, rubbing the condensation into his skin. "Rooiakker knows artists who have connections there, so they've got a place for me. It's some kinda boarding school for kids, I think fifth grade through high school or somethin'. But it's the largest repository of Magical portraits in all of western Europe. There's over a thousand, supposed to be hidden all through the castle. One of the largest intra-portrait networks for subject movement in the world."

"You think you might be busy, then?" Frank grinned, bottle extended to clink against his.

Jesse smiled back. _I think it sounds like an adventure._ But what he said was, "Eh, maybe a little."

And they laughed.

 

_**Fin.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to Oscar Wilde for mutating The Picture of Dorian Gray for my own purposes (and for basically calling him a rumor-spreading Muggle). What names and roundabout events I have taken from his book are, obviously, not mine; however, I have twisted things about quite a lot, so read the summary on Wiki, or better yet the actual book, if you wanna know how things really went. The opinions portrayed by characters in this fanfic do not necessarily reflect those of the author; translation: I have no idea if Oscar Wilde spread rumors, or if he was a Muggle.


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